Why does the press cover seemingly trivial matters like the "lipstick on a pig uproar"? (Or name your own trivial uproar.) Is the press complicit--or even the principal engine--in making politics so conflict-driven and superficial?

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Send to a friendWhy does the press cover seemingly trivial matters like the "lipstick on a pig uproar"? (Or name your own trivial uproar.) Is the press complicit--or even the principal engine--in making politics so conflict-driven and superficial?

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Every reporter knows that editors like stories people "talk about." These "talker" stories come up in news meetings all the time. Editors want 'em. Reporters (and campaigns) oblige. (A musician in Austin calls a song that will get people on the dance floor "pigeon food." Same thing.) The race to the bottom begins at the morning news meeting. What's sad is that there was something to talk about, right outside the door where Obama was speaking.

Obama made his pig comment in Lebanon, in far southwestern Virginia. A year ago, Purdue Pharma paid a $650 million fine to settle a suit brought by the U.S. Attorney in that district. Purdue had targeted that region to market its painkiller OxyContin and the company had been misleading in how it had marketed the drug, according to the feds. (Rudy Giuliani was one of the company's attorneys.) It's hard to talk to anybody in the coal region of Virginia or nearby Kentucky who doesn't have a relative who has been addicted to Oxy. Just a few months ago, Harvard researchers found that longevity had declined in 1,000 U.S. counties. For the first time in a century, Americans are living shorter lives — and the largest declines are in southwest Virginia. There are lots of things to write about, and it is all a choice.

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